


Krino

by WolfOfAnsbach



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Afterlife, Cliff Blossom gets what he deserves, Hell, Horror, Other, Post-Season/Series 01, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-26
Updated: 2017-06-26
Packaged: 2018-11-19 10:40:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11311695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WolfOfAnsbach/pseuds/WolfOfAnsbach
Summary: Clifford Blossom took his own life that night, before he could be punished for what he'd done. Alas, he was wholly unprepared for what came next.





	Krino

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write a petty revenge fic because Cliff Blossom is horrible.

Clifford Blossom is buried like a pauper, just as his widowed wife would say. On a cold, dreary morning under the grim shadow of Thornhill, his body is laid down into the earth. The ‘service’ is attended only by Penelope and Cheryl, both dressed in the same funeral blacks they wore to Jason’s memorial. Cheryl wouldn’t dare tell her mother, but she feels filthy, sacrilegious, even pretending to mourn her brother’s murderer in the same way she did him. Even the tears that Penelope sheds are shed just as much for the besmirched name of the Blossom family as for her departed husband. There was no minister or priest to officiate. They had never been particularly religious, and even if they had been, it would have been difficult to find a willing party in town, after the truth of what Cliff had done came to light.

No one dares to opine that Cliff is in a ‘better place’ now, or that he has ‘passed on’. He is good and cold and dead, and through the sad, secretive, dreary little town of Riverdale, there is little sympathy. When the last clump of sod is tossed over his coffin, and he is forever sealed within the ground, the two women who are the Blossom family’s only remains depart. Penelope goes first. Cheryl remains for a moment, alone at her father’s graveside. Tears well up in her eyes. She turns to make certain her mother is gone.

 She spits.

“I hope you’re burning in hell.” She chokes out, her voice breaking. Then she too, is gone.

In time, the town will move on, even from the stress that the calamities of the past few months have brought. Even in Riverdale, tucked away in its peaceful little valley among the glens and the rivers and mountains, life goes on. Local weirdo Jughead Jones finds an unlikely love with girl-next-door Betty Cooper. They can often be seen at Pop’s in a booth together, or strolling down main street hand in hand. People talk, and say that the son of FP Jones is a chip off the old block, and that Betty is ‘going down a bad road’ with him. But they’re happy, and that’s all that seems to matter. Archie Andrews and Veronica Lodge seem quite taken with each other as well, and are often found on double dates with Betty and Jughead. Kevin Keller is a bit distraught over the departure of his Serpent boyfriend, but he, Moose Mason, and Midge Klump manage to ‘work something out’. It seems complicated, so no one asks too many questions. Cheryl Blossom, absolutely broken, will try to take her own life, only to be stopped in the nick of time by Archie and his do-gooder friends. Things will fall apart from there. Chuck Clayton is still an asshole. Dilton Doiley becomes an even better shot than before.

The town heals. No one quite forgets the tragedy of the Blossoms, but no community can mourn forever.

But for Clifford Blossom, the mourning is just beginning.

 

* * *

 Cliff never believed in life after death. He was a cool-headed, rational, pragmatic man. Pragmatic enough that he would never allow emotional or familial ties to prevent him from doing what needed to be done. Pragmatic enough that he would fire a gun point blank into his own son’s face to protect his own interests and those of the company. It was what it was. No regrets, no remorse.

 Cliff Blossom had no time for fairy stories.

So when the rope drops, and he feels the thick nylon digging into his throat, and everything begins to dim, and the immense pain slowly crushes the life from his body, he expects that this is the end. That’s why he’s so surprised when the rope and barn and the world are gone, but he’s still there.

Cliff Blossom finds himself in darkness. And he realizes that he’s dead.

What this place is, he isn’t sure. The grave? Some sort of stopover for spirits passed on? Hell? A powerful, overwhelming dread begins to build in his gut. He can barely see through the powerful, crushing dark. Only enough to make out the rough, hazy shapes of hallways and rooms and chambers. A house? A palace? Thornhill? He walks forwards, steadily.

“Hello?”

There’s no answer. Indeed, the silence is so unbearable that it seems to dig its way into his ears and his eyes and pores and he wants to scream. Then it’s broken by a very light, almost calming sound. The gentle _drip drip drip_ of water. It’s soft and slow, like a faucet that isn’t turned off all the way.

“Who’s there?” he cries out.

The dripping grows louder, and very quickly ceases to be comforting.

Cliff cries out in shock as his foot is submerged in a puddle. The floor shouldn’t allow such a deep puddle, but there it is. He extracts his fancy, multi-thousand dollar shoe, which he has evidently carried with him into the afterlife. The water smells murky, strong. Not like tap water. Natural. Green. Like river water.

He continues forward through the halls, heart beating wildly in his chest. The smell of a lake (or a river) grows more powerful. Until, except for the fact that he’s breathing still, he feels like he’s _submerged_ in a river himself. Cliff steps into a room, as hazy and dark as the rest of this construct. On the wall, he sees a picture, behind cracked, grimy glass.

He recognizes Penelope. Cheryl. Jason. And-not himself. Where he should be in this pretty, perfect family portrait there is only a dark, murky emptiness. He backs away, his fear intensified ten fold.

And when Cliff turns around he finds himself face to face with a tall, looming shape. Even through this hellish darkness, recognition comes immediately.

“Oh God…Jason…”

The figure steps closer. He sees his son’s face. More than that, he sees the glazed, dead eyes. The mottled grey skin. The ginger hair dripping with Sweetwater River. The blue lips, slowly curling into a victorious, brutal grin. The ugly bullet hole, right between his eyes. Right where he left it.

Cliff backs away, awash in the terror that pours over him and into him and fills his lungs and his stomach and prepares to drown him. Sweetwater River pours into the dark house and the water is rising and rising and rising. Jason reaches out and gurgles out a greeting, his voice distorted by the water in his throat and his decaying tongue. Cliff whimpers in base, inhuman revulsion.

The water rises higher, and on some instinctive, spiritual level Cliff that there is no escape nor any reprieve. And that there never, ever will be.

Jason’s cold, impossibly powerful hands grasp him and he knows with an immeasurable sorrow and regret that they will never let go.

Clifford Blossom’s screams echo through eternity.

 


End file.
